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Read the latest Governing Management Letter 
—Exclusive— “A complete waste of money.” That's what California's inspector general, Matthew L. Cate, called the state's $1 billion investment in drug treatment for prisoners in a February 21 report. The problem had little to do with the policy, though. No, the issues here were almost entirely managerial and had been identified by outside auditors or the inspector general in the past. Most had to do with failures in dealing with the contractors who were responsible for the program. For one thing, the program was based on a proven “therapeutic community” model. We'll skip the details about what that means, because the point is that many of the programs simply didn't use that model and there was an “overall failure” to hold them accountable. That's kind of like hiring someone to build your house from bricks and then standing quietly by while they assemble it with straw (see “Three Little Pigs” for more details). There's more. The process used to select contractors restricted bidders in ways that eliminated some very qualified candidates. And contractors were allowed to shift funds from personnel budgets to operating budgets, which would be sensible, were it not for the fact that many lacked the required number of counselors. And while we're thinking about California, here's a set of numbers from San Diego that define the concept of the receding shoreline. In 1997, San Diego estimated that it had 180 miles of crumbling cast-iron water pipes, according to a piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Since then, the city has replaced 90 miles of cast-iron pipes, which would be good news — until you hear that the city now believes it has 195 miles to go. Lots of cities have big infrastructure problems. But as far as we can see, none of them have much of a chance of handling them if they don't have the foggiest notion of how big the problems are. How often have you had the experience of being snarled in a thicket of automated messages when you're trying to accomplish something pretty simple on the phone? Suzanne Flynn is auditor of Oregon's Multnomah County, and she recently issued a report indicating that use of this technology in her county “is a significant barrier to citizen access." There's no reason to think Multnomah is different from most other cities, counties and states, and we think it's time for many to reconsider the speed with which they replace human contact with a series of computerized menus. The audit found that getting to the right place for information about the county took more patience than should be required of citizens. In trying to get information out of the county, the auditor found, “We made multiple attempts, were transferred, and navigated through automated messages, which have increased from 60 in 1995 to about 300 today.” Check out the rest of Flynn's report. A growing number of cities and states has turned to online training as a way to keep employees up to speed. When we ask personnel officers why employees don't take better advantage of free training, often the answer is that they simply don't have time — or explicit permission — to leave their desks and enter a classroom. Thus, online training seemed like a very good idea to us. But maybe we've been a little naïve. When this kind of online education was offered to Southern Illinois University employees, about 250 failed to get credit for completing the training because they clearly didn't take enough time to do so properly. According to an Associated Press report, about 250 employees took just a few minutes to finish training that took the average employee about half an hour. It makes us wonder if other entities are being similarly careful. The wonderful irony at SIU, by the way, was that the online course was in ethics training. “Managing the Right Tension” was the title of an engaging piece in the Harvard Business Review a few months ago. Though the article, by Dominic Dodd and Ken Favaro, focused on the private sector, many of the ideas discussed have potential value for public-sector leaders. The piece generally focused on the idea that when corporations succeed in accomplishing one goal, they often sacrifice another. For example, if they're more profitable, they lose growth; or if they go for long-term profits, they don't make as much in the short term. The authors encourage corporate leaders to measure how well their companies are able to “succeed at two competing objectives at the same time in any given year.” We wrote about one similar public-sector dynamic in Governing's management column a few months ago — the interplay between providing services quickly versus providing them well. On thinking about it, there are many other obvious tensions in common government goals. How, for example, can a government entity: Add this to your list of favorite sites. We don't know of any state-funded organization that does a better job of providing evidence-based research and rigorous cost-benefit analysis than the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. Typically strong was its report last fall about the impact of various public policies on prison population, criminal-justice costs and crime rates. Right now, they're publishing a series of reports showing how various educational strategies impact academic achievement. The initial March 2007 report focused on class-size reduction and full-day kindergarten. One finding: There were clear benefits to reducing class size in early grades, but not so much evidence of impact in junior high and high school. The Institute, which was created by the legislature in 1983, takes what it calls an “S&P 500 approach” to analyzing past programs. Rather than looking at one or two so-called “best practices,” it studies all the programs it can find that have methodologically sound evaluations. “If one is interested in knowing the likely return from investing in the stock market, it is better to examine the historical and expected returns of many stocks, rather than focusing on the one stock that has performed exceptionally well,” the Institute explains in an introduction to the March study. Soon to come are studies about dropout-prevention programs, preschool, mentors for new teachers, professional-development activities and charter schools. We both attended Northwestern University years back. And there was a story — maybe a myth — that the library had been built without taking the weight of books into account, and that the structure was slowly crumbling as a result. We came across a story in the Salt Lake Tribune recently that reminded us of that one. Sad thing is, this one is definitely not a myth. The Utah Department of Workforce Services moved an employment center to an “industrial area in West Valley City four years ago.” The idea, of course, is that citizens would go to this center to get help finding work or to get on the rolls for unemployment benefits. Problem is, there's no bus service to the new location, an important shortcoming because people who don't have jobs are kind of likely not to have cars either. There's not even a sidewalk. So, according to the Tribune, “it is not uncommon to see folks with their children walking along the highway for more than a mile to receive state services.” Workforce Services wrote the Utah Transit Authority asking for expanded bus service four years back. But the Transit Authority didn't have the funds at the time. And it appears to still be studying the problem. From the “Pouring Money Down a Pit” file: In a series of audits launched by Mayor Cory Booker in Newark last year, it was discovered that some 12 percent of the city's tax and water bills (300,000 pieces of mail per month) were being returned as undeliverable. Of course, that means an awful lot of those bills aren't being paid. And that's not good. But here's the kicker: Since Newark had no system for correcting bad addresses, the same undeliverable mail went out each month at a monthly cost that exceeded $100,000. “The Office of the Inspector General is dedicated to seeking out waste, mismanagement and fraud in government spending and ensuring the accountability and integrity of all state agencies.” That's the official description of the IG's office in New Jersey. And it sounds an awful lot like the governor's proposal for an independent comptroller, which is now being reviewed. The idea that both offices can exist simultaneously isn't a problem. There's plenty to do. Our unsolicited advice to the governor: Make sure the two offices have clearly defined roles. Years ago, we had a rather frightening conversation with a high-level Philadelphia employee who launched into the argument that the city couldn't put money into maintaining facilities because the public doesn't want city employees to work in well-maintained places. Best we recall, he insisted that the public took maintenance of public buildings as a sign of misspent money. This made it more than a little unsettling when we came across a city controller's report about conditions at Philadelphia's police facilities at the end of last year, describing extensive problems: “water damage, electrical hazards, fire hazards, miscellaneous safety hazards, dirty conditions, unsightly conditions, broken or nonfunctional equipment or facilities, and structural issues.” In 2002 the city spent $7.8 million on renovation and repair of these facilities. Last year it spent about $1 million. We must hasten to add that we have no evidence that there's any link between the mindset of the official we spoke to in the past and the problems today. But we can't help but wonder whether there is a connection. You can see video of the conditions at the controllers' Web site. They call it “the Addison way” down in Texas, referring to the little suburb of Dallas that goes by that name. The community, with a residential population of about 14,000, is a booming hive of commercial activity and boasts a daytime population of 100,000. The Addison Way generally refers to a vigorous effort to deliver the best services to citizens that its admittedly boom-bust economy affords. We can't say that we've personally come face-to-face with any of Addison's services. But the town's budget document came to our attention, and its clear presentation, crisp graphics, results orientation and plain English could be a model for many large cities. The benefit? “When we have our city council sessions, they bring the book with them,” reports Randy Moravec, director of financial and strategic services for Addison. “In years past I'd never seen them do that as much as they do now." How do people view and evaluate local government? It's an important question for any local official — elected or appointed. It's also the topic of a terrific little book, “Listening to the Public: Adding the Voices of the People to Government Performance Management and Reporting,” by Barbara J. Cohn Berman of the Fund for the City of New York. We were particularly taken with Chapter 3, “Ten Significant Observations about how People View Local Government." A few of the observations from that chapter: In full disclosure, we've known and liked Barbara for years. But maybe that's because she makes so much sense. To get a copy of the book, click here. WDTAAAGWTC. That's an acronym for: “We don't think acronyms are a good way to communicate.” Apparently the Hennepin County Board agrees. It has supported a largely symbolic effort to levy a 50-cent fine on anyone who uses an acronym when addressing the board. “It took me a year to figure out where the washrooms were” is the line you often hear from relatively new public-sector managers. Though they usually say this with a smile, there's no question that the men and women who take new management jobs each year in government risk losing a lot of valuable time and momentum during the first few months. We came across a neat book, “The First 90 Days in Government: Critical Success Strategies for New Public Leaders at All Levels,” by Peter H. Daly and Michael Watkins with Cate Reavis. It addresses just this point. For the new guy in city hall or the statehouse, the book's principles for success are a pretty straightforward jump-start. A few of their thoughts: Last month's Management Letter featured a Governing piece by Jonathan Walters in which he wrote about the difficulties that states, cities and counties will confront when they finally begin to disclose their gargantuan long-term liabilities for non-pension retiree benefits. He pointed to Travis County, Texas, where the chief auditor has been arguing that it's foolish to disclose liabilities that can't be predicted with a high degree of certainty, pointing out that “it's a criminal offense to falsify a government record.” There's little question that these benefit figures are estimates at best — as they rely on actuarial assumptions about interest rates and health care costs decades away. This line of reasoning brought us back about 27 years, when this very argument was one of the lynchpins of the fight to avoid disclosing pension liabilities on the balance sheets of publicly held companies. We decided to dig out a piece we wrote for Forbes at the time, and were startled to fully recall how many well-respected accountants were advancing the Travis County argument then. The “information tells you nothing,” said one. We disagreed with them then, as we disagree with the same logic now. As we wrote at the end of the Forbes piece, shortly after Ronald Reagan began his first term in office, “There are never totally acceptable answers to complex questions. But the easiest answer — avoiding the question — is often the least acceptable." Research Assistant: Heather Kleba © 2007, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are registered trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. |
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